Be Well Hub Case Study: English for Action

English for Action has signed up to become a Be Well Hub in Greenwich, south London. In this blog, Lucie from English for Action sets out how the group aims to support the mental health of its members.

We provide accessible, participatory, and empowering English language classes for local residents. We believe that learning English language allows people to better communicate together, understand each other and create supportive and more resilient communities. We support our students to speak up on issues that impact them and participate fully in society. Using community organising methods we campaign on issues relevant to people from migrant communities, such as access to health services and various socioeconomic issues affecting mental health and wellbeing.

We have been working in Greenwich since 2008. Our Greenwich hub now consists of our main ESOL class in Robert Owen Children’s Centre, our online beginner class, an online conversation club and since last year also a conversation club in the newly open community pub The Star of Greenwich.

The pub is designed to be a community hub run by the people of East Greenwich for the people of East Greenwich, aiming to bring together different parts of the local community, reduce inequality and improve community cohesion. It is offering space to various community groups including our class.

English for Action meet at The Star of Greenwich to discuss their Be Well Hub.

After the summer break we have again started meeting in the pub on Friday mornings and have had conversations on everyday topics, such as our children at school, traditions, celebrations, food and recipes.

But we also reflected on our visit to the Migration Museum in Lewisham and the exhibition Taking Care of Business, and among other things we discussed what makes businesses fair and sustainable. As always, we started a new school year with a bit of planning, brainstorming together ideas and activities we would like to do and talk about in our club. We asked ourselves what is important for our mental health and wellbeing and what should we do to be a good Be Well Hub? We want to:

• communicate, talk about feelings and mental health with each other

• build friendships and support each other

• get expert advice on housing, school, jobs and doctors

• share knowledge and experiences

• celebrate together and share food

• play games and have fun together

• do some art and craft activities, sewing, singing and flying kites

• discuss literature and theatre, organise a theatre visit

• organise trips to interesting places in London and walks in the neighbourhood

• do some exercise, yoga and dance

• care about our bodies

• eat chocolate.

So, we had a chocolate tasting session and some participants joined kite flying in Greenwich Park the following weekend and we are going to work on including all the above suggestions into our programme.

Last Friday we had a visitor from South London Listens who came to talk with us about Be Well Hubs, the training available to us, and the action we can take together to make mental health services better for everyone in south London.

English for Action meet at The Star of Greenwich to discuss their Be Well Hub.

One member of our group, Lian, commented on the South London Listens visit:

“My name is Lian, I am an English for Action student. Last week, my English teacher Lucie, other students and Lynne from South London Listens had a wonderful meeting.

We discussed mental health. Our meeting was held in a joyful atmosphere. We respected each other opinions and ideas.  Some students shared and recounted their experiences with mental health and local GPs.

In our class, most students cannot speak English very well, and for this reason, making the phone call for an appointment with a GP doctor is extremely difficult, or we have to wait 2 or 3 weeks. We also think we have a lack of support from the GP. We hope GPs can improve their service.

Lynne explained to us about mental health, and mental health training with South London Listens. Everyone was very excited, we would like to learn new skills to support, be compassionate, care for each other and improve our awareness. We also need to prevent problems with mental health and build our confidence.”

Svitlana who also attends the group considered what it would be to be a good Be Well Hub:

“Our ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) class should be a friendly community, not only to improve English language but also to interact with people with different nationalities and cultures. It gives us an opportunity to understand each other better as well as build more tolerance and respect. We can start our class more often with answering questions such as ‘What happened to you last week?’ or ‘What makes you happy today?’ It helps when people notice and appreciate the positive moments in their lives. Create a welcoming space when we talk about different topics, everyone can freely express their opinion and share experiences to help to solve difficulties. Also, talking more about wellbeing and what brings joy to life. It would be good if we talked more about our achievements, we should pay more attention to what new skills and knowledge we acquired and what we can do right now to get closer to our goals and wellbeing.”

The group is hosted by The Star of Greenwich, a community owned pub.  James, one of the volunteers behind the project said:

“Our primary objective as a community owned pub is to create opportunities for people to meet people they wouldn’t have done otherwise.  We believe that diverse friendships help our community to become closer, more resilient and a nicer place to live.

To make that happen we’ve tried to create a pub that is welcoming to a wide range of people.  We are also creating a sustainable business that can create a better neighbourhood for all.

We have proud to host the English for Action project provides accessible, participatory and empowering English language clashes for migrants.  They campaign on issues effecting migrants and support their students to speak up on issues that impact them and they train other ESOL teachers in their powerful approach.

We very much welcome the Be Well approach and would love to do more with the South London Listens project as it aligns with our public living room approach.”

You can find out more about Be Well Hubs here.